UKC

I went to buy stuff to make a new computer and was shocked to find that prices seem have increased substantially since a year ago. This is something that almost never happens in the world of computers. But the usual fast pace of improved technology seems to have slowed if not stopped and prices, at least for some stuff, is now higher.

Specifically an intel cpu (i5 6500) I bought a year ago for £136 now costs close to £200. Similarly the motherboard I bought last year for about £70 is now £120. GPU's seem to have improved a bit. For the same price as last year you now get one that is a bit better.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this. Is it a temporary thing and should I wait until prices come back down? Just a blip like it was with hard drives a few years ago or is it more of a general trend?

In reply to stp:

Does the weakness of the pound have much to do with it?

In reply to stp:

Probably in part due to Brexit and the consequent weakness in the pound. You've seen the same happen to the prices of other electronic items that are imported e.g. cameras.

In reply to stp:

I work in data storage appliances and sodtware and all our gear is at least 20pc more expensive than a year ago due to Brexit. We are a us firm.

In reply to tjoliver:

I suspect that's only a part of it. I can't see it accounting for a 50% increase though.

The other factor is that the technology doesn't seem to be improving the way it has done in the past. It used to be that getting the same CPU as 12 months ago might not even be possible as it had been significantly superceded by better ones - usually at the same price. This doesn't seem to be happening now. Has computer tech reached a plateau now where the only improvements will be minor - at least until the arrival of quantum computing?

In reply to stp:



Much of our usps are about performance with nvram, cpu cores and ssds. Our recent product refresh saw throughput increase by about 70% and iops increase by between 10 and 50% for roughly the same cost.

In reply to stp:
There are a few reasons for the slowdown recently.

Regarding Intel specifically, it has no competition in the desktop CPU market. AMD has been way out of it for the last 5-6 years polishing the turd that was the Bulldozer architecture. AMD lacked single core performance largely in part of sharing cache between cores for and sacrificing clocks per cycle persuing more cores. Unfortunately the optimisation of applications splitting work between multiple cores for most mainstream applications didn't come as soon as AMD expected.

To add insult to injury, Intel were getting more cpus per silicon wafer because of their more advanced manufacturing techniques (more on this later) making AMDs cost more per chip and cutting into the little profit they could have made with an aggressive pricing strategy.

Anyway, in response to no competition Intel cut funding to it's R & D and abandoned it's 'tick, tock' cycle of development. Also Intel often went back and increased prices of existing CPUs when the latest generation of AMD chips didn't deliver. Hopefully we are seeing a remergence of competition as AMD hired the guy that made AMD their last brilliant chip and the benchmarks for their new Zen architecture look promising enough.

There is little more to this story. The main developments in speed and power efficiency over the years has been generally down to shrinking down the size of each transistor, with the latest step (commercially) Intel took it from 22 nanometer to 14nm. Due to the chemical properties of silicon we're unlikely to get transistors much smaller than around 7nm (this is about 35 atoms long) which is why Intel say that by 2020 their 7nm process will involve a semiconductor other than silicon.

In reply to FreshSlate:

You clearly seem to know a lot about this, but the first posters straight off the block have already told you, that it was due to Brexit, so no need to say any more

In reply to Jim C:


No they didn't, the first poster asked a question:

The second poster said it was 'part due':

How can you say that the devaluation of the pound either (a) has nothing to do with the increasing costs of things like electronic goods imported to the U.K. or (b) The Brexit vote didn't cause the value of the pound to fall?

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I'm wondering if people disliking posts like this are Brexit voters who don't want to think it might be true?

Economic realities don't follow politics so much, if the pound is weaker it'll make imported things more expensive however people voted, and after Brexit the pound's got weaker (largely as predicted - it seems to me).

In reply to Timmd:

So utterly and sadly predictable. If or when we really Brexit, the pound could go a lot lower, and then we may also be facing extra tariffs on all EU goods.

In reply to John Stainforth:

Good incentive to start making stuff ourselves then! Who knows in 10 years time we may even have a trade surplus!

In reply to FreshSlate:

Thanks. Really interesting answer. Suspected it must be more than just Brexit.

I wondered if might be to do with lack of competition. I switched to Intel some years ago after being a loyal AMD user for years before that.

Though I'd have thought that Intel might still want to compete with themselves in the sense that if computers aren't progressing there's little incentive to buy a new one. And in normal use computer hardware seems to last forever.

In reply to pass and peak:


Not sure how realistic that is with super high tech industries like CPU manufacturing. Surely that would require massive investment to start up and there'd be no guarantee a viable outcome. It seems very much like Intel hold all the aces.

In reply to Jim C:


Electronic components are priced in US dollars, pretty much nothing is manufactured in the UK. If the pound falls 20% against the dollar then the UK distribution will absorb it for a while but in the end the prices will go up. So the primary short term driver is Brexit.

There are other medium to long term industry specific factors the most important one being that the cost of building a semiconductor fab for the most advanced process technology is now so high that it is forcing consolidation in the industry which also reduces competition. The rate of growth of the semiconductor market is also lower than it has been historically which means semiconductor companies are not being regarded as growth stocks and management is under pressure from investors to make a profit and pay dividends rather than invest to get to the next thing faster.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


Not sure that's entirely true - though I suppose what there is tends to be higher-priced, lower-volume wares. A weak pound must be good for their export - perhaps in a few years we'll all be benefiting from a surge in global sales of quality British made DMM gear, Rolls-Royce engines and cluster bombs

In reply to stp:



How much does it cost to develop the next chip set?
Without fierce competition Intel will want to maximise the sales of their existing product then when sales start to drop they will release the next step.
If they are not losing a significant market share to another company why would they want to roll out a new product every 6 months.

In reply to pass and peak:

Let's hope. But don't hold your breath.

In reply to Jim C:

It's pretty uncontroversial that the pound fell a fair bit against the dollar because of brexit, so things from the US now cost more, no? The kind of thing that a reasonable brexiter might happily ackowledge...

In reply to nufkin:



According to Wiki, there are three semiconductor fabrication plants in the UK, out of 199 in their (self-admittedly incomplete) list of fabs worldwide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

AFAIAA none of the UK ones make microprocessors (NXP's plant makes power MOSFETs). Texas Instruments are closing their Greenock plant, which I believe was the largest semiconductor fab in the UK.

I think Tom's statement is pretty much on the money within the context of this discussion: the vast majority of microprocessor chips are made in the Far East and the USA. Modern silicon fabs making chips designed for the latest (ie smallest) technologies can cost billions of dollars each to build and commission.

In reply to stp:

Buy a cheap PC with that chipset in the sales and take out the bits you want and sell on the other parts.